This theme issue is devoted to what we propose to call a "geography of action". It aims to contribute to the production of epistemological knowledge based on data and fieldwork in European, African, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries which have recently seen conflicts reignite and new ones open up. To "learn from territories in conflict" (a title taken from two sessions organized during the 2023 colloquium of the Collège international des sciences territoriales) seems, indeed, important and provides a heuristic approach for nurturing a geography of action that we see as resulting from successive inflections of action-related geography: the instrumental geography of the early twentieth century that "served first and foremost to wage war" (Lacoste, 1977); the empiricist geography of the 1940s–1950s that wanted to avoid any compromising with imperialist and totalitarian states (Sorre, 1957; Brennetot, 2011); the geography involved in political action and urban planning until the mid-1980s; and the social geography which, as part of a quest for "spatial justice" (Harvey, 1973; Soja, 2011), positioned itself against the effects of neoliberalism (Pile and Keith, 1997; Sharp et al., 2000; Drozdz, 2016). Today, it is in a context of political, economic, socio-territorial, and environmental crises that geographers who approach their field differently (Hérin, 1999) and worry about what they "leave behind" (Valentine, 2005; Copans and Adell, 2019) position themselves. To this end, the articles presented in this theme issue tackle conflict situations which, whatever their duration, scope, or level of violence, become sources of learning and social mobilization (Featherstone, 2009; Nicholls, 2009; Pailloux and Ripoll, 2019). They also show that these mobilizations take place in a variety of spatial configurations (Sewell, 2001; Combes et al., 2016) that are or become objects of social demands. The forms of action analysed are those of the parties directly involved in the conflict or those of the populations affected by it: spontaneous or collectively structured. The contributions to this theme issue finally demonstrate how politicians, institutions, and citizens can "learn" – in emergencies or over time – from the socio-spatial dynamics that run through the territories in conflict and how the arbitrations that regulate them can be part of empowerment logics (Groom and Webb, 1987; Friedman, 1992; Jouve, 2006) or authoritarian forms of resolution (Blot and Spire, 2014; Michalon, 2020).

Bautès, N. and Marie dit Chirot, C.: Pour une géographie sociale de l'action, Carnets de géographes (online), 4, http://journals.openedition.org/cdg/982, 2012.

Blot, J. and Spire, A.: Déguerpissements et conflits autour des légitimités citadines dans les villes du Sud, L’Espace Politique (online), 22, 2014-1, http://journals.openedition.org/espacepolitique/2893, https://doi.org/10.4000/espacepolitique.2893, 2014.

Brennetot, A.: Les géographes et la justice spatiale: généalogie d'une relation compliquée, Annales de géographie, 2, 678, 115–134, 2011.

Combes, H., Garibay, D., and Goirand, C.: Les lieux de la colère. Occuper l'espace pour contester, de Madrid à Sanaa. Karthala, Questions Transnationales, ISBN 9782811115371, https://www.cairn.info/les-lieux-de-la-colere--9782811115371.htm, 2016.

Copans and Adell: Introduction à l’éthnologie et à l’anthropologie, Armand Colin, 304 pp., 2019.

Drozdz, M.: L’espace du discours. Médias et conflits d’aménagement à Londres, L’Espace géographique, 45, 3, 232–248, 2016.

Featherstone, D.: Resistance, Space and Political Identities, Londres, Wiley Blackwell, 240 pp., 2008.

Friedman, J.: Empowerment. The Politics of Alternative Development, Blackwell, Cambridge, 208 pp., 1992.

Groom, A. J. R. and Webb, K.: Injustice, empowerment, and facilitation in conflict, International Interactions, 13, 3, 263–280, https://doi.org/10.1080/03050628708434678, 1987.

Harvey, D.: Social Justice in Spatial Systems, in: R. Peet (Ed.), Geographical Perspectives on American Poverty, Antipode Monographs In Social Geography, 1, Worcester, 87–106, 1972.

Hérin, R.: Pour une géographie sociale critique et responsable, in: Ch. Chivallon, P. Ragouet, and M. Samers, Discours scientifiques et contextes culturels, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme d’Aquitaine, Talence, 129–139, 1999.

Jouve, B.: Éditorial. L'empowerment: entre mythe et réalités, entre espoir et désenchantement, Géographie, économie, société, 8, 1, 5–15, 2006.

Lacoste, Y.: La géographie, ça sert, d'abord, à faire la guerre, Ed.: Maspero, Paris, 187 pp., 1976.

Michalon, B.: The Handbook of Displacement, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47178-1_16, 2020.

Nicholls, W.: Place, networks, space: theorising the geographies of social movements, Transaction of the Institute of British Geographers, 34, 1, 78–93, 2009. Pailloux, A.-L. and Ripoll, F.: Géographie(s) des mobilisations, Carnets de géographes (online), 12, 2019, http://journals.openedition.org/cdg/5142, https://doi.org/10.4000/cdg.5142, 2019.

Phlipponneau, M.: Géographie et action. Introduction à la géographie appliquée, A. Colin, 227 pp., 1960.

Pile, S. and Keith, M. (Eds.): Geographies of Resistance, London & New York, Routledge, 315 pp., 1997.

Sewell, W. H.: Space in Contentious Politics, Ronald, R. Aminzade, Jack A. Gladstone, Doug McAdam, Elisabeth J. Perry, William H. Sewell, Sindey Tarrow, and Charles Tilley (Eds.): Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 51–88, 2001.

Sharp, Joanne P., Routledge, Paul, Philo, Chris, and Paddison, Ronan: Entanglements of power. Geographies of Domination/Resistance, London & New York, Routledge, 300 pp., 2000.

Soja, E.: Seeking Spatial Justice, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 288 pp., 2010.

Sorre, M.: Rencontres de la géographie et de la sociologie. Petite Bibliothèque Sociologique Internationale dirigée par Armand Cuvillier, A 4, Paris, 213 pp., 1957.

Valentine, G.: Geography and ethics: moral geographies? Ethical commitment in research and teaching, Progress in Human Geography, 29-4, 483–487, 2005.

Housing is a fundamental human need, a policy arena, and a lived experience. It is also a market commodity and a financialized asset, increasingly shaped by global corporate actors. The ways in which housing is produced, regulated, and inhabited reflect broader socio-economic structures and contribute to spatial inequalities. Across the world, access to housing is becoming more precarious as financial speculation drives up costs (Aalbers, 2016), and state policies often fail to protect those most vulnerable (van Gent and Hochstenbach, 2020), leading to displacement and exclusion (Hilbrandt and Dimitrakou, 2022). At the same time, these structural forces are experienced in deeply personal ways as individuals and communities navigate displacement pressures, struggle for stability, and reimagine alternative housing models (Keller, 2024).

This theme issue explores housing inequality through three interrelated dimensions: the housing market, housing policy and planning, and lived experience of housing. Rather than treating these dimensions as separate, the contributions in this issue examine their entanglement: how market forces, policy decisions, and everyday struggles intersect to shape housing outcomes. Adopting a broad geographic and conceptual scope, this theme issue does not impose a singular definition of housing inequality. Instead, it brings together diverse perspectives that highlight the uneven geographies of displacement, financialization, and exclusion, as well as efforts to reclaim housing as a social good. Through case studies on urban densification, green gentrification, cooperative housing, and tenant struggles, this issue develops a critical and situated understanding of housing inequalities in Switzerland and beyond. While recognizing the specificity of each case, it also draws broader theoretical and empirical insights, contributing to ongoing debates on housing justice, urban governance, and spatial inequality. Rather than framing housing crises as isolated emergencies, this issue underscores their structural and systemic nature.

References:

Aalbers, M. B.: The Financialization of Housing: A Political Economy Approach, Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315668666, 2016.
Hilbrandt, H. and Dimitrakou, I.: Responsibility for housing: Property, displacement, and the rental market, Geoforum, 131, 69–78, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.02.008, 2022.
Keller, J.: Feeling–living–fighting the housing crisis: Testimonio as methodology in geographic housing research, Soc. Cult. Geogr., 26, 397–414, https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2024.2403758, 2024.
van Gent, W. and Hochstenbach, C.: The neo-liberal politics and socio-spatial implications of Dutch post-crisis social housing policies, International Journal of Housing Policy, 20, 156–172, https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2019.1682234, 2020.

This theme issue focuses on the notion of marginal urbanities, both as physical spaces, positionalities, and practices and as a methodological framing capable of highlighting relevant aspects of urban dynamics and multiple modes of space production. We argue that the vagueness of the notion of the margin should be seen not as a weakness but as an inevitable consequence of the plurality and complexity of urban phenomena. Following a rich and plural scholarly tradition, this theme issue refuses to provide a single, narrowed-down definition of margins, focusing instead on the importance of nourishing the spatial imaginary by defending non-dominant perspectives and geographies. Instead of restricting the field to one specific conception, the different contributions to this theme issue aim to bring into dialogue distinct ways of analysing and conceiving the margins emerging from empirical observations. Indeed, as Lancione (2016) argues, in focusing a priori on a definition of what the margins and borders are, or in trying to contain their heterogeneity into strict theoretical boxes, a whole set of fundamental things – like the nuanced way power and affects work in the everyday life of people and their spaces – get dismissed or not adequately acknowledged (2016:4).

The plurality of case studies, analysis frameworks, methodologies, and conceptions of the margin collected in this theme issue will be presented in such a way as to maintain the delicate balance between recognizing the peculiarities of each specific case and attempting to develop a systematic reflection on urban phenomena. In this way, without giving in to the neoliberal fascination with the cutting edge and novelty, this theme issue makes its own modest, yet serious, contribution to a long-running debate on urban margins.

Lancione, M. (Ed.): Rethinking life at the margins: The assemblage of contexts, subjects and politics, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London, New York, 2016.

Geography as an academic discipline is called upon to help make sense of multiple political, social, and ecological crises. At the same time, it is increasingly coming under attack by actors seeking to delegitimize and police knowledge production in geography and adjacent disciplines. Attempts to delegitimize and police geography stem from within and beyond academia and on and off campus and cut across the political spectrum. In this theme issue, we invite contributions that critically engage with the delegitimizing and policing of geography under the guise of critiquing perspectives, theories, and fields that many geographers adopt in their work, such as postcolonial, settler-colonial, and decolonial studies; gender and race studies; racial capitalism and critical race theory; political ecology; and critical physical geography.

The current anti-scientific climate in society has a longer history and can be placed in the wider context of cultural politics of gender and diversity, memory and identity, and history and science (denialism). The more recent rise of right-wing, authoritarian, and diagonalist political movements (Klein, 2023; Amlinger and Nachtwey, 2022; Callison and Slobodian, 2021; Daggett, 2018) coupled with current geopolitical events, such as the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, has further led to a rapidly shrinking space for critical academic speech – in Europe, North America, and elsewhere. These attempts have led not only to personal attacks on geographers and geographic institutional spaces, but also to self-policing within the discipline.

With this theme issue we seek to contribute to much-needed debates on the impacts of the current anti-scientific climate on academia. This call for papers invites contributions from different linguistic communities in European geography and beyond to critically reflect on the ongoing attempts to delegitimize and police academic speech and knowledge production, with a particular focus on geography.

On the one hand, we are interested in contributions that engage specifically with geographic scholarship, research, and teaching in and across specific national contexts: (how) do geographers experience shrinking spaces for academic speech and knowledge production in geography departments, seminars, classes, and journals? What aspects of geographic knowledge production (e.g. certain theoretical approaches and traditions, empirical sites, academic and civil society networks, syllabi) are particularly affected and how? To what extent are the ways that geographers are exposed to attempts to delegitimize and police critical scholarship different from other disciplines? What role does technology play in the (self-)policing of geography, for instance, through presence on social media or in the classroom? How do institutions and associations navigate the climate of policing and (self-)censoring? What kind of political alliances are forged to undermine free speech and knowledge production in geography, and how do geographers resist attempts of delegitimization and policing? What spaces for solidarity exist and are being built, and how do geographers defend their academic freedom?

On the other hand, we call for contributions from geography and associated disciplines about academic speech and knowledge production more broadly: what can a critical geography contribute to help make better sense of the various attempts of delegitimization and policing of academic speech and knowledge production, not limited to the discipline of geography? What does a geography of delegitimizing and policing academic speech and knowledge production look like? How do campus politics become increasingly transnational in the context of a growing anti-science climate in society? How do different actors contribute to the politicization of academic speech and knowledge production? What would the ultimate broader effects of the politicization of academic knowledge production and speech and the transnationalization of campus politics be?

Seeking to assemble a wide range of different national, linguistic, and theoretical traditions, this call for papers invites contributions from early-career and senior scholars. Contributions to this theme issue can be submitted in different formats (peer-reviewed standard articles up to 8000 words excluding references, peer-reviewed short interventions, book reviews, non-peer-reviewed creative forums) and in four different languages (English, German, French, Italian). They will be handled by members of the editorial board: Jevgeniy Bluwstein, Ottavia Cima, Hanna Hilbrandt, Nadine Marquardt, René Véron, and Alexander Vorbrugg.

References

Amlinger, C. and Nachtwey, O.: Gekränkte Freiheit, Aspekte des libertären Autoritarismus, Suhrkamp, 2022.

Callison, W. and Slobodian, Q.: Coronapolitics from the Reichstag to the Capitol, Boston Review, https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/quinn-slobodian-toxic-politics-coronakspeticism/ (last access: 12 September 2024), 2021.

Daggett, C.: Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire, Millennium-J. Int. St., 47, 25–44, 2018.

Klein, N.: Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirrow World, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 9780374610326, 2023.

In response to the environmental impacts of traditional protein production, stakeholders are increasingly optimistic about the role of alternative proteins – such as vegan and vegetarian options, cultivated meat, and milk substitutes – in shaping future food security. As food systems evolve, it is essential to critically assess the true environmental benefits of these alternatives and their potential impacts on local farming and food sovereignty. This theme issue examines how various actors, including scientists, industry experts, lobbyists, and artists, envision equitable food production, exploring whose interests these new systems might serve. Contributors investigate diverse protein alternatives and the infrastructures and contexts that support them. While focusing on biotechnologies in cell agriculture, the issue also considers farming technologies and regulatory frameworks influencing food production's future. Through socio-technical imaginaries, we highlight both the creative and the practical aspects of these innovations and their potential for societal transformation and new social arrangements.

For the last 10 years, there has been an intense debate on the effects of climate change and on societal adaptation in social sciences extending disciplinary boundaries as well as diverse dimensions of social life, economic systems, and governance. At the beginning of the 2020s, the majority of climate change adaptation research is financed by public authorities embedding an explicitly output-driven application focus in project design. Such projects typically aim at developing concrete, mostly technology-driven solutions and best practices for selected regions or sectors. As a result of such scientific pragmatism, corresponding theorizations of the socially and politically contextualized design and implementation of adaptation research as well as its societal effects are either underrepresented or entirely non-existent. After more than 10 years of social science research on climate change adaptation, it is necessary to identify and update key research opportunities for the social sciences, in addition to questions arising from structural uncertainties and knowledge gaps with regard to the manifestations of climate change. Not least due to dynamic activity in the area of (urban) planning and implementing climate change adaptation, this theme issue explores opportunities of future socio-theoretical research in this field and its relevance.

In light of multiple crises at a planetary scale, the uneven distribution of survival prospects has increasingly moved into the focus of public and academic debate. While works on biopolitics have long scrutinized the governing and control of life, scholarly attention is increasingly shifting towards necropolitics, i.e. state-supported policies that systematically kill or let die. This theme issue addresses the question of how such forms of necropolitics are linked to the spatial manifestation of unequal conditions of survival. It asks which rationalities, power relations, and social structures lead to premature death and how these conditions are spatially manifested. The contributions engage with a range of issues from borders, war, and diseases to urban governance, gender, and ecology, analysing the killing and letting die of both human and non-human lives. In thus outlining the contours of a necrogeography, the theme issue seeks to strengthen within social geography a power-sensitive perspective on killing and letting die.

Abschiede, Trauer, Erinnerungen – Verlusterfahrungen und ihre Deutung nehmen im (mehr-als-)menschlichen Leben eine zentrale Rolle ein. Zwicky (2014) argumentierte, dass alle größeren Wissenssysteme darauf ausgelegt seien, die Welt gegen Verlust abzusichern. Während Tod als Ereignis begegnet, so zeige sich Verlust in verschiedenen Formen und Intensitäten als beständige Begleitung. Auf-, Ab- und Umbrüche werden potentiell von Verlust begleitet, Zukünfte häufig im Modus der Verlustbearbeitung erschlossen. Die praxeologische und performative Dimension der Verlustbearbeitung („doing loss“) gliedert sich in individuelle und kollektive Praktiken des Trauerns, Erinnerns und Verdrängens, in Praktiken der Verlustprävention, -kompensation und -restitution, wird in Rituale, Narrative und Imaginationen übersetzt und ist Gegenstand politischer Aushandlungen (Marris, 1974; Reckwitz, 2021). Wenn positive und hoffnungsvolle Deutungen der Zukunft krisenhaft werden, erlangen Praktiken der Verlustbearbeitung Konjunktur wie Benjamin (1940) in der geschichtsphilosophischen These über Klees ‚Engel der Geschichte‘ insinuiert.

Geographien des Verlusts entstehen im Zusammenspiel von gesellschaftspolitischen, kulturellen, räumlichen und planetarischen Transformationen. Als Ergebnisse tiefgreifender Veränderungen ist ihre individuelle und kollektive Deutung relational an eine vorausgegangene und als abgeschlossen gewertete Zeitlichkeit und Räumlichkeit gebunden. In der Geographie erscheint die systematische und konzeptionelle Erschließung von Verlust als Desiderat (Jedan et al., 2020), was angesichts der Ubiquität von Krisendiagnosen im Anthropozän überrascht (Cunsolo and Landman, 2017). Gesellschaften in Transformation sind von Verlusterfahrungen gekennzeichnet, deren diskursive Bearbeitung von zentralem Interesse für die gesellschaftspolitische Gestaltung von Zukunft ist.

Im Themenheft werden die Geographien des Verlusts in konzeptionellen und empirischen Beiträgen erkundet werden. Das Themenheft versammelt erstens Arbeiten zu Affekten und Praktiken des Verlusts in ihrer räumlichen Dimension. Zweitens steht dies vor dem Hintergrund eines häufig rapiden gesellschaftlichen Wandels von Gesellschaft-Natur-Verhältnissen und/oder sozial-ökologischer und politischer Transformation. Drittens interessieren die materiellen Raumproduktionen und (urbanen) Architekturen des Verlusts sowie deren Rekonstruktionen im Kontext von Erinnern und Gedenken. Die politischen Geographien des Verlusts sind, viertens, insbesondere für die Imagination und Gestaltung von neuen Geographien der Zukunft von Bedeutung. Zur Frage steht hierbei, inwieweit Verlust in seiner diskursiven Rahmung als abrupt, gerechtfertigt, notwendig o.ä. zu unterschiedlichen Gestaltungsspielräumen führt. Fünftens interessieren ebenfalls auch Methodologien und Methoden zur Erforschung von Geographien des Verlusts.

Das Themenheft ist bewusst interdisziplinär angelegt. Die Verschränkung von geschichtswissenschaftlichen, sozialwissenschaftlichen und geographischen Perspektiven ist für die Erkundung der Geographien des Verlusts von zentraler Bedeutung.

Literatur

Benjamin, W.: Über den Begriff der Geschichte. In: ders.: Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 19, Berlin, 2010 (1940).

Cunsolo, A., Landman, K. (Hrsg.): Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief, Montreal, 2017.

Jedan, C., Maddrell, A., Venbrux, E. (Hrsg.): Consolationscapes in the Face of Loss, Grief and Consolation in Space and Time, Abindgon, 2020.

Marris, P.: Loss and Change, New York, 1974.

Reckwitz, A.: Auf dem Weg zu einer Soziologie des Verlusts, In: Soziopolis: Gesellschaft beobachten, Online, 2021.

Zwicky, J.: Lyric Philosophy, Edmonton, 2014.

Communities are produced, contested, and contradictory in everyday life – and inherently spatial. Building on the assertion of Gertenbach et al. (2010) that community holds a central position in the arsenal of modernity, we echo the paramount importance of understanding how society and collectivity take shape, particularly in the context of the often-lamented loss of community during processes of individualization. In doing so, we recognize communities as shared urban practices in a globalized world (Blokland, 2017) that hold both progressive potential, such as enabling solidarity, and regressive tendencies, when based on ethnocentric ideas or, more broadly, invoking the register of privilege and closure. As such, once produced, communities – although difficult to define and conceptualize, not least because of their multiple forms and functions – continue to play a significant role in everyday social life, social policy, and politics.

The contributions in this theme issue explore the role of community and its various forms in the making of place and space on different scales; address the power relations that are expressed in these sites of community making; and analyse how communities are territorially justified and contested, opened, and closed in the process.

References

Blokland, T. (Ed.): Community as urban practice, Polity Press, Cambridge, ISBN 978-1-509-50482-4, 2017.

Gertenbach, L., Laux, H., Rosa, H., and Strecker, D. (Hrsg.): Theorien der Gemeinschaft: Zur Einführung, Junius, Hamburg, ISBN 978-3-88506-667-5, 2010 (in German).

Housing is a fundamental human need, a policy arena, and a lived experience. It is also a market commodity and a financialized asset, increasingly shaped by global corporate actors. The ways in which housing is produced, regulated, and inhabited reflect broader socio-economic structures and contribute to spatial inequalities. Across the world, access to housing is becoming more precarious as financial speculation drives up costs (Aalbers, 2016), and state policies often fail to protect those most vulnerable (van Gent and Hochstenbach, 2020), leading to displacement and exclusion (Hilbrandt and Dimitrakou, 2022). At the same time, these structural forces are experienced in deeply personal ways as individuals and communities navigate displacement pressures, struggle for stability, and reimagine alternative housing models (Keller, 2024).

This theme issue explores housing inequality through three interrelated dimensions: the housing market, housing policy and planning, and lived experience of housing. Rather than treating these dimensions as separate, the contributions in this issue examine their entanglement: how market forces, policy decisions, and everyday struggles intersect to shape housing outcomes. Adopting a broad geographic and conceptual scope, this theme issue does not impose a singular definition of housing inequality. Instead, it brings together diverse perspectives that highlight the uneven geographies of displacement, financialization, and exclusion, as well as efforts to reclaim housing as a social good. Through case studies on urban densification, green gentrification, cooperative housing, and tenant struggles, this issue develops a critical and situated understanding of housing inequalities in Switzerland and beyond. While recognizing the specificity of each case, it also draws broader theoretical and empirical insights, contributing to ongoing debates on housing justice, urban governance, and spatial inequality. Rather than framing housing crises as isolated emergencies, this issue underscores their structural and systemic nature.

References:

Aalbers, M. B.: The Financialization of Housing: A Political Economy Approach, Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315668666, 2016.
Hilbrandt, H. and Dimitrakou, I.: Responsibility for housing: Property, displacement, and the rental market, Geoforum, 131, 69–78, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.02.008, 2022.
Keller, J.: Feeling–living–fighting the housing crisis: Testimonio as methodology in geographic housing research, Soc. Cult. Geogr., 26, 397–414, https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2024.2403758, 2024.
van Gent, W. and Hochstenbach, C.: The neo-liberal politics and socio-spatial implications of Dutch post-crisis social housing policies, International Journal of Housing Policy, 20, 156–172, https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2019.1682234, 2020.

In response to the environmental impacts of traditional protein production, stakeholders are increasingly optimistic about the role of alternative proteins – such as vegan and vegetarian options, cultivated meat, and milk substitutes – in shaping future food security. As food systems evolve, it is essential to critically assess the true environmental benefits of these alternatives and their potential impacts on local farming and food sovereignty. This theme issue examines how various actors, including scientists, industry experts, lobbyists, and artists, envision equitable food production, exploring whose interests these new systems might serve. Contributors investigate diverse protein alternatives and the infrastructures and contexts that support them. While focusing on biotechnologies in cell agriculture, the issue also considers farming technologies and regulatory frameworks influencing food production's future. Through socio-technical imaginaries, we highlight both the creative and the practical aspects of these innovations and their potential for societal transformation and new social arrangements.

Communities are produced, contested, and contradictory in everyday life – and inherently spatial. Building on the assertion of Gertenbach et al. (2010) that community holds a central position in the arsenal of modernity, we echo the paramount importance of understanding how society and collectivity take shape, particularly in the context of the often-lamented loss of community during processes of individualization. In doing so, we recognize communities as shared urban practices in a globalized world (Blokland, 2017) that hold both progressive potential, such as enabling solidarity, and regressive tendencies, when based on ethnocentric ideas or, more broadly, invoking the register of privilege and closure. As such, once produced, communities – although difficult to define and conceptualize, not least because of their multiple forms and functions – continue to play a significant role in everyday social life, social policy, and politics.

The contributions in this theme issue explore the role of community and its various forms in the making of place and space on different scales; address the power relations that are expressed in these sites of community making; and analyse how communities are territorially justified and contested, opened, and closed in the process.

References

Blokland, T. (Ed.): Community as urban practice, Polity Press, Cambridge, ISBN 978-1-509-50482-4, 2017.

Gertenbach, L., Laux, H., Rosa, H., and Strecker, D. (Hrsg.): Theorien der Gemeinschaft: Zur Einführung, Junius, Hamburg, ISBN 978-3-88506-667-5, 2010 (in German).

This theme issue focuses on the notion of marginal urbanities, both as physical spaces, positionalities, and practices and as a methodological framing capable of highlighting relevant aspects of urban dynamics and multiple modes of space production. We argue that the vagueness of the notion of the margin should be seen not as a weakness but as an inevitable consequence of the plurality and complexity of urban phenomena. Following a rich and plural scholarly tradition, this theme issue refuses to provide a single, narrowed-down definition of margins, focusing instead on the importance of nourishing the spatial imaginary by defending non-dominant perspectives and geographies. Instead of restricting the field to one specific conception, the different contributions to this theme issue aim to bring into dialogue distinct ways of analysing and conceiving the margins emerging from empirical observations. Indeed, as Lancione (2016) argues, in focusing a priori on a definition of what the margins and borders are, or in trying to contain their heterogeneity into strict theoretical boxes, a whole set of fundamental things – like the nuanced way power and affects work in the everyday life of people and their spaces – get dismissed or not adequately acknowledged (2016:4).

The plurality of case studies, analysis frameworks, methodologies, and conceptions of the margin collected in this theme issue will be presented in such a way as to maintain the delicate balance between recognizing the peculiarities of each specific case and attempting to develop a systematic reflection on urban phenomena. In this way, without giving in to the neoliberal fascination with the cutting edge and novelty, this theme issue makes its own modest, yet serious, contribution to a long-running debate on urban margins.

Lancione, M. (Ed.): Rethinking life at the margins: The assemblage of contexts, subjects and politics, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London, New York, 2016.

Geography as an academic discipline is called upon to help make sense of multiple political, social, and ecological crises. At the same time, it is increasingly coming under attack by actors seeking to delegitimize and police knowledge production in geography and adjacent disciplines. Attempts to delegitimize and police geography stem from within and beyond academia and on and off campus and cut across the political spectrum. In this theme issue, we invite contributions that critically engage with the delegitimizing and policing of geography under the guise of critiquing perspectives, theories, and fields that many geographers adopt in their work, such as postcolonial, settler-colonial, and decolonial studies; gender and race studies; racial capitalism and critical race theory; political ecology; and critical physical geography.

The current anti-scientific climate in society has a longer history and can be placed in the wider context of cultural politics of gender and diversity, memory and identity, and history and science (denialism). The more recent rise of right-wing, authoritarian, and diagonalist political movements (Klein, 2023; Amlinger and Nachtwey, 2022; Callison and Slobodian, 2021; Daggett, 2018) coupled with current geopolitical events, such as the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, has further led to a rapidly shrinking space for critical academic speech – in Europe, North America, and elsewhere. These attempts have led not only to personal attacks on geographers and geographic institutional spaces, but also to self-policing within the discipline.

With this theme issue we seek to contribute to much-needed debates on the impacts of the current anti-scientific climate on academia. This call for papers invites contributions from different linguistic communities in European geography and beyond to critically reflect on the ongoing attempts to delegitimize and police academic speech and knowledge production, with a particular focus on geography.

On the one hand, we are interested in contributions that engage specifically with geographic scholarship, research, and teaching in and across specific national contexts: (how) do geographers experience shrinking spaces for academic speech and knowledge production in geography departments, seminars, classes, and journals? What aspects of geographic knowledge production (e.g. certain theoretical approaches and traditions, empirical sites, academic and civil society networks, syllabi) are particularly affected and how? To what extent are the ways that geographers are exposed to attempts to delegitimize and police critical scholarship different from other disciplines? What role does technology play in the (self-)policing of geography, for instance, through presence on social media or in the classroom? How do institutions and associations navigate the climate of policing and (self-)censoring? What kind of political alliances are forged to undermine free speech and knowledge production in geography, and how do geographers resist attempts of delegitimization and policing? What spaces for solidarity exist and are being built, and how do geographers defend their academic freedom?

On the other hand, we call for contributions from geography and associated disciplines about academic speech and knowledge production more broadly: what can a critical geography contribute to help make better sense of the various attempts of delegitimization and policing of academic speech and knowledge production, not limited to the discipline of geography? What does a geography of delegitimizing and policing academic speech and knowledge production look like? How do campus politics become increasingly transnational in the context of a growing anti-science climate in society? How do different actors contribute to the politicization of academic speech and knowledge production? What would the ultimate broader effects of the politicization of academic knowledge production and speech and the transnationalization of campus politics be?

Seeking to assemble a wide range of different national, linguistic, and theoretical traditions, this call for papers invites contributions from early-career and senior scholars. Contributions to this theme issue can be submitted in different formats (peer-reviewed standard articles up to 8000 words excluding references, peer-reviewed short interventions, book reviews, non-peer-reviewed creative forums) and in four different languages (English, German, French, Italian). They will be handled by members of the editorial board: Jevgeniy Bluwstein, Ottavia Cima, Hanna Hilbrandt, Nadine Marquardt, René Véron, and Alexander Vorbrugg.

References

Amlinger, C. and Nachtwey, O.: Gekränkte Freiheit, Aspekte des libertären Autoritarismus, Suhrkamp, 2022.

Callison, W. and Slobodian, Q.: Coronapolitics from the Reichstag to the Capitol, Boston Review, https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/quinn-slobodian-toxic-politics-coronakspeticism/ (last access: 12 September 2024), 2021.

Daggett, C.: Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire, Millennium-J. Int. St., 47, 25–44, 2018.

Klein, N.: Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirrow World, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 9780374610326, 2023.

This theme issue is devoted to what we propose to call a "geography of action". It aims to contribute to the production of epistemological knowledge based on data and fieldwork in European, African, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries which have recently seen conflicts reignite and new ones open up. To "learn from territories in conflict" (a title taken from two sessions organized during the 2023 colloquium of the Collège international des sciences territoriales) seems, indeed, important and provides a heuristic approach for nurturing a geography of action that we see as resulting from successive inflections of action-related geography: the instrumental geography of the early twentieth century that "served first and foremost to wage war" (Lacoste, 1977); the empiricist geography of the 1940s–1950s that wanted to avoid any compromising with imperialist and totalitarian states (Sorre, 1957; Brennetot, 2011); the geography involved in political action and urban planning until the mid-1980s; and the social geography which, as part of a quest for "spatial justice" (Harvey, 1973; Soja, 2011), positioned itself against the effects of neoliberalism (Pile and Keith, 1997; Sharp et al., 2000; Drozdz, 2016). Today, it is in a context of political, economic, socio-territorial, and environmental crises that geographers who approach their field differently (Hérin, 1999) and worry about what they "leave behind" (Valentine, 2005; Copans and Adell, 2019) position themselves. To this end, the articles presented in this theme issue tackle conflict situations which, whatever their duration, scope, or level of violence, become sources of learning and social mobilization (Featherstone, 2009; Nicholls, 2009; Pailloux and Ripoll, 2019). They also show that these mobilizations take place in a variety of spatial configurations (Sewell, 2001; Combes et al., 2016) that are or become objects of social demands. The forms of action analysed are those of the parties directly involved in the conflict or those of the populations affected by it: spontaneous or collectively structured. The contributions to this theme issue finally demonstrate how politicians, institutions, and citizens can "learn" – in emergencies or over time – from the socio-spatial dynamics that run through the territories in conflict and how the arbitrations that regulate them can be part of empowerment logics (Groom and Webb, 1987; Friedman, 1992; Jouve, 2006) or authoritarian forms of resolution (Blot and Spire, 2014; Michalon, 2020).

Bautès, N. and Marie dit Chirot, C.: Pour une géographie sociale de l'action, Carnets de géographes (online), 4, http://journals.openedition.org/cdg/982, 2012.

Blot, J. and Spire, A.: Déguerpissements et conflits autour des légitimités citadines dans les villes du Sud, L’Espace Politique (online), 22, 2014-1, http://journals.openedition.org/espacepolitique/2893, https://doi.org/10.4000/espacepolitique.2893, 2014.

Brennetot, A.: Les géographes et la justice spatiale: généalogie d'une relation compliquée, Annales de géographie, 2, 678, 115–134, 2011.

Combes, H., Garibay, D., and Goirand, C.: Les lieux de la colère. Occuper l'espace pour contester, de Madrid à Sanaa. Karthala, Questions Transnationales, ISBN 9782811115371, https://www.cairn.info/les-lieux-de-la-colere--9782811115371.htm, 2016.

Copans and Adell: Introduction à l’éthnologie et à l’anthropologie, Armand Colin, 304 pp., 2019.

Drozdz, M.: L’espace du discours. Médias et conflits d’aménagement à Londres, L’Espace géographique, 45, 3, 232–248, 2016.

Featherstone, D.: Resistance, Space and Political Identities, Londres, Wiley Blackwell, 240 pp., 2008.

Friedman, J.: Empowerment. The Politics of Alternative Development, Blackwell, Cambridge, 208 pp., 1992.

Groom, A. J. R. and Webb, K.: Injustice, empowerment, and facilitation in conflict, International Interactions, 13, 3, 263–280, https://doi.org/10.1080/03050628708434678, 1987.

Harvey, D.: Social Justice in Spatial Systems, in: R. Peet (Ed.), Geographical Perspectives on American Poverty, Antipode Monographs In Social Geography, 1, Worcester, 87–106, 1972.

Hérin, R.: Pour une géographie sociale critique et responsable, in: Ch. Chivallon, P. Ragouet, and M. Samers, Discours scientifiques et contextes culturels, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme d’Aquitaine, Talence, 129–139, 1999.

Jouve, B.: Éditorial. L'empowerment: entre mythe et réalités, entre espoir et désenchantement, Géographie, économie, société, 8, 1, 5–15, 2006.

Lacoste, Y.: La géographie, ça sert, d'abord, à faire la guerre, Ed.: Maspero, Paris, 187 pp., 1976.

Michalon, B.: The Handbook of Displacement, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47178-1_16, 2020.

Nicholls, W.: Place, networks, space: theorising the geographies of social movements, Transaction of the Institute of British Geographers, 34, 1, 78–93, 2009. Pailloux, A.-L. and Ripoll, F.: Géographie(s) des mobilisations, Carnets de géographes (online), 12, 2019, http://journals.openedition.org/cdg/5142, https://doi.org/10.4000/cdg.5142, 2019.

Phlipponneau, M.: Géographie et action. Introduction à la géographie appliquée, A. Colin, 227 pp., 1960.

Pile, S. and Keith, M. (Eds.): Geographies of Resistance, London & New York, Routledge, 315 pp., 1997.

Sewell, W. H.: Space in Contentious Politics, Ronald, R. Aminzade, Jack A. Gladstone, Doug McAdam, Elisabeth J. Perry, William H. Sewell, Sindey Tarrow, and Charles Tilley (Eds.): Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 51–88, 2001.

Sharp, Joanne P., Routledge, Paul, Philo, Chris, and Paddison, Ronan: Entanglements of power. Geographies of Domination/Resistance, London & New York, Routledge, 300 pp., 2000.

Soja, E.: Seeking Spatial Justice, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 288 pp., 2010.

Sorre, M.: Rencontres de la géographie et de la sociologie. Petite Bibliothèque Sociologique Internationale dirigée par Armand Cuvillier, A 4, Paris, 213 pp., 1957.

Valentine, G.: Geography and ethics: moral geographies? Ethical commitment in research and teaching, Progress in Human Geography, 29-4, 483–487, 2005.

In light of multiple crises at a planetary scale, the uneven distribution of survival prospects has increasingly moved into the focus of public and academic debate. While works on biopolitics have long scrutinized the governing and control of life, scholarly attention is increasingly shifting towards necropolitics, i.e. state-supported policies that systematically kill or let die. This theme issue addresses the question of how such forms of necropolitics are linked to the spatial manifestation of unequal conditions of survival. It asks which rationalities, power relations, and social structures lead to premature death and how these conditions are spatially manifested. The contributions engage with a range of issues from borders, war, and diseases to urban governance, gender, and ecology, analysing the killing and letting die of both human and non-human lives. In thus outlining the contours of a necrogeography, the theme issue seeks to strengthen within social geography a power-sensitive perspective on killing and letting die.

Abschiede, Trauer, Erinnerungen – Verlusterfahrungen und ihre Deutung nehmen im (mehr-als-)menschlichen Leben eine zentrale Rolle ein. Zwicky (2014) argumentierte, dass alle größeren Wissenssysteme darauf ausgelegt seien, die Welt gegen Verlust abzusichern. Während Tod als Ereignis begegnet, so zeige sich Verlust in verschiedenen Formen und Intensitäten als beständige Begleitung. Auf-, Ab- und Umbrüche werden potentiell von Verlust begleitet, Zukünfte häufig im Modus der Verlustbearbeitung erschlossen. Die praxeologische und performative Dimension der Verlustbearbeitung („doing loss“) gliedert sich in individuelle und kollektive Praktiken des Trauerns, Erinnerns und Verdrängens, in Praktiken der Verlustprävention, -kompensation und -restitution, wird in Rituale, Narrative und Imaginationen übersetzt und ist Gegenstand politischer Aushandlungen (Marris, 1974; Reckwitz, 2021). Wenn positive und hoffnungsvolle Deutungen der Zukunft krisenhaft werden, erlangen Praktiken der Verlustbearbeitung Konjunktur wie Benjamin (1940) in der geschichtsphilosophischen These über Klees ‚Engel der Geschichte‘ insinuiert.

Geographien des Verlusts entstehen im Zusammenspiel von gesellschaftspolitischen, kulturellen, räumlichen und planetarischen Transformationen. Als Ergebnisse tiefgreifender Veränderungen ist ihre individuelle und kollektive Deutung relational an eine vorausgegangene und als abgeschlossen gewertete Zeitlichkeit und Räumlichkeit gebunden. In der Geographie erscheint die systematische und konzeptionelle Erschließung von Verlust als Desiderat (Jedan et al., 2020), was angesichts der Ubiquität von Krisendiagnosen im Anthropozän überrascht (Cunsolo and Landman, 2017). Gesellschaften in Transformation sind von Verlusterfahrungen gekennzeichnet, deren diskursive Bearbeitung von zentralem Interesse für die gesellschaftspolitische Gestaltung von Zukunft ist.

Im Themenheft werden die Geographien des Verlusts in konzeptionellen und empirischen Beiträgen erkundet werden. Das Themenheft versammelt erstens Arbeiten zu Affekten und Praktiken des Verlusts in ihrer räumlichen Dimension. Zweitens steht dies vor dem Hintergrund eines häufig rapiden gesellschaftlichen Wandels von Gesellschaft-Natur-Verhältnissen und/oder sozial-ökologischer und politischer Transformation. Drittens interessieren die materiellen Raumproduktionen und (urbanen) Architekturen des Verlusts sowie deren Rekonstruktionen im Kontext von Erinnern und Gedenken. Die politischen Geographien des Verlusts sind, viertens, insbesondere für die Imagination und Gestaltung von neuen Geographien der Zukunft von Bedeutung. Zur Frage steht hierbei, inwieweit Verlust in seiner diskursiven Rahmung als abrupt, gerechtfertigt, notwendig o.ä. zu unterschiedlichen Gestaltungsspielräumen führt. Fünftens interessieren ebenfalls auch Methodologien und Methoden zur Erforschung von Geographien des Verlusts.

Das Themenheft ist bewusst interdisziplinär angelegt. Die Verschränkung von geschichtswissenschaftlichen, sozialwissenschaftlichen und geographischen Perspektiven ist für die Erkundung der Geographien des Verlusts von zentraler Bedeutung.

Literatur

Benjamin, W.: Über den Begriff der Geschichte. In: ders.: Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 19, Berlin, 2010 (1940).

Cunsolo, A., Landman, K. (Hrsg.): Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief, Montreal, 2017.

Jedan, C., Maddrell, A., Venbrux, E. (Hrsg.): Consolationscapes in the Face of Loss, Grief and Consolation in Space and Time, Abindgon, 2020.

Marris, P.: Loss and Change, New York, 1974.

Reckwitz, A.: Auf dem Weg zu einer Soziologie des Verlusts, In: Soziopolis: Gesellschaft beobachten, Online, 2021.

Zwicky, J.: Lyric Philosophy, Edmonton, 2014.

For the last 10 years, there has been an intense debate on the effects of climate change and on societal adaptation in social sciences extending disciplinary boundaries as well as diverse dimensions of social life, economic systems, and governance. At the beginning of the 2020s, the majority of climate change adaptation research is financed by public authorities embedding an explicitly output-driven application focus in project design. Such projects typically aim at developing concrete, mostly technology-driven solutions and best practices for selected regions or sectors. As a result of such scientific pragmatism, corresponding theorizations of the socially and politically contextualized design and implementation of adaptation research as well as its societal effects are either underrepresented or entirely non-existent. After more than 10 years of social science research on climate change adaptation, it is necessary to identify and update key research opportunities for the social sciences, in addition to questions arising from structural uncertainties and knowledge gaps with regard to the manifestations of climate change. Not least due to dynamic activity in the area of (urban) planning and implementing climate change adaptation, this theme issue explores opportunities of future socio-theoretical research in this field and its relevance.